WEST LAFAYETTE – The future of the Purdue-Notre Dame football series and how the Boilermakers' nonconference schedule will look became clear Thursday.

Five-year break

Athletic director Morgan Burke has sent enough signals that it wasn't a surprise to learn next year's matchup against the Fighting Irish will be the last between the programs in football until 2020.

The 2014 game, which was scheduled to be played at Notre Dame, will be staged Sept. 13 at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis as part of the Irish's Shamrock Series. Kickoff is at 7:30 p.m.

The schools have played every season since 1946, but the Big Ten moving to a nine-game conference schedule in 2016 and Notre Dame's commitment to play five Atlantic Coast Conference games made it nearly impossible for the series to continue annually.

"We worked every angle we could come up with to put games together," Burke said. "We've been successful, at least in pushing the games out into the next decade. I know there are going to be some people who are disappointed that we weren't able to keep the string alive.

"The world changes. Sometimes there are things that are not in Purdue's control or Notre Dame's control that we've got to deal with in the bigger scheme of things."

The schools have agreed to play at Purdue (2020 and '24) and at Notre Dame (2021 and '25). The '26 game will be held at a neutral location and is considered an Irish home game.

Burke doesn't believe Purdue's program will be hurt by the absence of Notre Dame.

"I don't think our football program depends on playing Notre Dame. I don't think Notre Dame's football program depends on playing Purdue," Burke said. "I don't like to see traditions broken, which we tried to look out into the future and create a pathway so people didn't think there was some kind of chasm between the schools."

As part of next year's contract, Notre Dame will provide Purdue with 10,000 seats behind its own bench at Lucas Oil Stadium. The Irish usually provide 5,000 tickets to visiting teams.

Replacing the Irish

Without Notre Dame, it allows the nonconference schedule to feature variety. First up is Virginia Tech, which plays at Purdue in 2015. The Boilermakers don't play at Virginia Tech until 2023.

The series with Missouri is on for 2017 and '18. Cincinnati and Nevada also visit Ross-Ade Stadium in '16.

The future matchups help Purdue, and the Big Ten, with the strength of schedule component for the upcoming College Football Playoff.

"We're going to try and create some games that people haven't seen because of the traditional Notre Dame-Purdue rivalry," Burke said. "That will give people some quality opponents and schools we have something in common with as well."

More changes

Purdue has moved its 2017 matchup against Eastern Kentucky to the '16 season opener. Cincinnati, which was scheduled to open the '16 season at Ross-Ade Stadium, visits one week later.

Although Burke was faced with several moving parts, it was essential not to break contracts in formulating future schedules.

The Big Ten has encouraged its schools to move away from scheduling FCS programs. Purdue has three under contract — Southern Illinois (2014), Indiana State (2015) and Eastern Kentucky (2016).

Future opponent

Burke has one more high-profile game against a BCS opponent to announce, but declined Thursday because all the details weren't finalized. The game will be played in 2017.

Asked if it's a home, road or neutral site game, Burke said: "You're going to have to wait on that one."

Burke is open to the possibility of more neutral-site games.

"Going forward, we'll look at it from time to time," he said. "You might see a year where we have six home games, one neutral site, and the neutral site game would be in an area that would be attractive to Purdue alums."